Repartitioning a new Dell laptop

I have now received my new Inspiron 1720 and plan to reformat the HDD and set up the partitions in a way in which it would be easier for me to backup the data on each one. Before really doing that, I would just like to finally make sure that I have understood everything I have read about the process so far.

I would like to recreate the obligatory MediaDirect partition and then have three partitions for my own use. That however means that the Diagnostic and Recovery partition will have to go:

1. Now, I understand that the Diagnostics can be run from the Drivers and Utilities CD, so I can safely get rid of that partition without losing anything unrecoverable, can I not?
   
2. Concerning the Recovery partition, I actually cannot restore the whole HDD factory settings from some DVD, can I? I checked the media in the package and there are only MediaDirect install disc, Vista install Disc and Drivers and Utilites disc. I have read that some people have a single Recovery CD, but it seems to me that it is not the case with all Dell laptops.
   
   • I can use Clonezilla to create a highly compressed image the whole HDD (MBR included - have read that Dell uses some non-standard one) before I mess with it and then burn the image on possibly one DVD, but still the manufacturer's recovery disc is better since one can never rely on his/her own backup not going unapplicable for some undiscoverable reason. So is the recovery to factory-settings possible in some other way then through making your own images?
     
     
   • In fact, the only reason I am worried about the Recovery partition is that erasing it means losing something unrecoverable. Apart from that, I do not expect I would use the function any time. If at any time my OS goes dead, I always prefer to reinstall it manually. So second question concerning the Recovery partition would be: Is there something special and hidden about it I do not want to lose if the factory set-up the Inspiron came with is of no value to me? Something like Dell refusing me support? Or the Recovery partition gives me nothing added to what I can get by using the MediaDirect disc, Windows disc and the Drivers and Utilities disc (for drivers and Dell Diagnostics), ignoring the unwanted bloatware.

 

1. Yes, though that hidden partition covers some hidden things in it.
2. No you can't. The way it works is the hidden partition stores all your factory settings so you will no longer be able to bring it back.

The recovery CD is no longer used by dell. All you can do is to make your own recovery CDs through windows.

You can use Clonezilla, but it actually doesn't work as it is not truly identical. The Mediadirect partition actually shows up as @ symbols where it should be 0's alongwith other things meaning that you have to do more than just simply cloning the drive. You actually have to go in andmodify sectors of your hard drive and make changes where appropriate otherwise you WILL run into problems.

Yes, i agree that the recovery partition is something unrecoverable which is why I chose after extensive research not to reformat it. I actually had two M1530s and was returning one, it actually booted up faster than the other. Though after I reformated the faster one and reinstalled the partitions with a fresh copy of windows and all, the speed actuallywent down.

Despite what some people say,the bloatware on the XPS M1530 is really not a big deal at all as it is very small in amount and they are easilyuninstalled and located. Its not like many of their other laptops where bloat is a serious issue. My recommendation is that if you want to reformat and all, I suggest you just get another hard drive and reinstall/repartition that new drive just so that should there ever be the time where you want to restore to factory settings, just stick in your old drive and run the recovery so that you can still bring it back to factory state.

 

Thank you for the reply.

Is this still an issue even if I use dd via Clonezilla to create the image? That would probably not yield a reasonable size for burning it onto DVDs, but I could still keep it on the external HDD for some time. And still there is the possibility that compression would eliminate most of the repetition occuring in empty part of the cloned HDD, so there is even a slight possiblity of the image being in fact of a burnable size.

If dd still does not solve the thing I will probably leave the Restore partition as it is and only delete the Diagnostic partition and replace it with a purely data one. This at least gives me the flexibility of imaging and restoring back the OS partition in case the OS goes bust leaving the data partition unaffected.

Or would even the MBR restoration by Clonezilla when the Windows partition is restored render the Restore partition useless? If so, I would probably get rid of that partition as the OS restore via image is much more likely to be used by me compared to the Restore partition, which I won't probably ever use.

 

The Diagnostics partition on my 1720 is only 78 MB. I can't see any use to turning that into a data partition.

Running diskmgmt.msc on my 1720 shows the following:

78 MB EISA configuration (Dell Diagnostics partition)
RECOVERY (D 10 GB NTFS
OS (C 136.47 GB NTFS
2.5 GB (Media Direct partition)

This is for a 160GB hard drive
Is there a hidden partition in addition to these?

 

As far as I know, you can only have four real partitions per HDD, so I am not concerned so much about the space it takes up - I just need the fourth partition to free up.

If the Diagnostics can be run from a CD, than I guess that it is the one whose removal can cause no harm whatsoever.

This is caused by the fact that HDD manufacturers use division by 1000 to compute kBs from bytes, MBs from kBs, GBs from MBs, whereas the Disk Management utility is using the real units, which assume 1024 bytes in a kilobyte, etc.

As in your case, when you compute 160*1000^3/1024^3 and compare it with sum of the sizes shown by Disk Management utility, this holds, so there should be no hidden partition.